This was the first time I have seen Halloween. I am a horror movie buff, but not the gore type, more the psychological thriller type. I used this as my rationale for not having seen such a “classic” movie. Upon much deliberation about what to watch, my boyfriend and I enthusiastically picked Halloween. Much to our dismay, we were left unimpressed and grossed out.
The Good
Not to be 100% critical of a movie so many adore and site as an incredibly iconic movie, I will first start with my positive thoughts about the movie. It was well cast, with Jamie Lee Curtis holding majority of that impression. Mike Myers is also well cast and very good at being creepy. The plot is interesting in that it keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering where Mike Myers is at a given moment. Cinematography was also compelling.
The Impractical and the Frustrating
To start, as a feminist, I must mention my frustrations with the over sexualization of the female characters. Almost every female character has some sort of reason to be underdressed or naked throughout the movie. This is not the case with the men, of course. Why on earth would Mike Myer’s sister be sitting naked in front of a window and an open bedroom door? This is just unlikely. Also, gross that Mike Myers just walks in on her sitting like that. Then throughout the movie, there is a character that takes off her clothes because she spilled butter on them – I don’t know who takes off their clothes because of a butter stain, especially while babysitting (to then go wash them, again, while babysitting), also in front of glass doors. The last character that is a woman naked is having sex, for some reason, with her boyfriend, for some reason, in the house of the family her friend is babysitting for. NOT TO MENTION, all of these naked girls are just that, GIRLS. GROSS. I feel like this is too perverted to even understand. All of the people watching the movie I hope realize that this is like pornography of children. It is not some artistic direction, but sex appeal of supposed minors.
The dog is never brought up again. The dog is obviously killed by Mike Myers, but nobody ever says anything about it, and Annie never seems to see the dog.
I don’t know why no lights are ever turned on. It’s like, for movie effect, they wanted to keep it dark and creepy. That doesn’t make sense practically though. Why wouldn’t any of the people curious about the quietness in the house turn on the lights or call for help?
I don’t know when Mike Myers brought the car back to his house. Somehow between hiding Annie’s body (where, we don’t know, until it ends up back on the bed at the end) the car was moved. Or maybe the car was near the house that she was babysitting, but it’s hard to tell with the lighting. Also, the doctor managed to walk to the house from the Myers’s house, but it seemed like when Annie and Laurie were driving it took a while – it went from a light sky to a dark sky as they were driving. On that note, they were followed by Mike Myers throughout the beginning of the movie and for some reason had no idea. This was strange.
What was the point in showing the bullies with the little boy that Laurie is babysitting? This was not pertinent to the story and did not add character depth. Him being alone with a babysitter on the night of Halloween did the same amount to show us that the kid didn’t have many friends. If it was to bring about the Boogey Man, this could have been anecdotal in another sense, like Laurie saying something.
No plot explanations. Why did Mike Myers kill his sister? Why is he so obsessed with the town he grew up in? Why hasn’t anything been done to the house for 15 years? How would he remember the address of the former home (he was six) and know how to drive there? Why is he going after Laurie or her friends?
At the end there is a cinematic flaw. The camera pans on many areas that the movie had taken place. They showed the living room, though, with a knife still on the ground, though at this point Mike Myers has already brought the knife upstairs.
How Mike Myers lived with multiple stabbings and gun shots is beyond me. Also, what is beyond me is the total lack of concern for Mike Myers laying down behind Laurie in multiple scenes. Obviously it’s a horror movie expectation that the viewer knows more, but it seems just plain stupid. I would want to make sure someone was dead or incapacitated if he had hunted my friends and then tried to hunt me before turning my back on him.
Overall Rating
I am not interested in watching a movie that uses the sexualization of minors as an attraction, even for a few good spooks. Don’t need to see the second, third, or the thirteenth version of this movie.
